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An Overture to 

William Tell 



BY 



WILLIAM H. McELROY 



ii 






NEW YORK 
The Republic Press 

1892 








CorvKiCiHr 1892 

BY 

WILLIAM H. McHLROY 



••yv / 




AN OVERTURE 



TO 







gHACKERAY called "Vanity Fair" a novel 
without a hero. If we resolve William 
Tell into a myth, then Switzerland has the 
unique and rather dismal distinction of being a 
land without its greatest hero ! It may be con- 
tended that the transformation of the man Tell 
into the myth Tell was accomplished long ago. 
5 



But 1 am not so sure of that, after being here 
and there in Switzerland. True, the earliest Swiss 
historians make no mention of Tell. True, all the 
guide-books — concocted out of Switzerland — in- 
form their patrons that there never was any such 
person. 

True, Baring-Gould, in his " Curious Myths 
of the Middle Ages," argues that the familiar 
story of Tell and the apple is a simon-pure 
fiction, and in order to strengthen his position 
points out that the analogue of the story is 
part of the legendary record, antedating their 
serious history, of several countries besides 
Switzerland. That is one side of the Tell issue, 
but there is another. 1 was at Zurich the other 
day, and while sauntering through its arsenal 
was shown the bow with whicli William Tell 
"fired the shot heard round the world." And 
a formidable weapon it is. The bow proper is 
of steel, the stock is of oak braced with iron, 
and the great trigger is of iron. You could tell 
an ox with it — the bow which our old friend 
Ulysses carried could scarcely have been harder 
to bend. Why does Zurich keep William Tell's 



bow and guard it so carefully? Because of a 
public sentiment protesting that the bow stands 
for a fact and not for a fraud. This same 
sentiment similarly manifests itself at Altdorf. 
1 saw there a statue of heroic size of William 
Tell. It was erected as late as 1861, on the 
spot where he executed his immortal feat ot 
marksmanship. It is certain that if any Swiss 
should attempt to down it, he would be 
treated by his fellow countrymen as General 
Dix proposed to treat the miscreant who 
offered to haul down the American flag. In 
addition to the bow and the statue, three 
memorial chapels attest that William Tell 
is believed in and revered by the Swiss masses. 
It is not in sane human nature, is it, to erect and 
perpetuate chapels in remembrance of myths? 
Two of the three are on Lake Lucerne, and the 
other is at Burglen, standing on the site of the 
house in which Tell was born. A man is born, 
not made ; a myth is made. One of those 
on the lake was erected in 1^588. Now the 
Tell iconoclasts rely largely on the circum- 
stance that "no trace of such a person," 
7 



as Baedeker puts it, "is to be found in the 
work of John of Winterthur (Vitoduranus, 
1 ■?4q), or that of Conrad Justinger, of Bern 
(1420), the earliest Swiss historians." But 
the chapel in question deprives this argu- 
ment of its significance. The two historians 
were silent touching Tell, but here was a 
sermon in stone, nearly as ancient as one of 
them, and more ancient than the other, 
testifying that there was "such a person." 
Obviously, it bears directly and forcibly on 
the point to incjuire how the school-children 
of to-day, in Switzerland, are taught to regard 
Tell. In Zurich 1 purchased recently a school- 
book (in German) entitled " Historic Picture 
Book for the Swiss Youth. Third edition. 
Zurich." One of the historic pictures presented 
in this elementary work for the instruction of 
the Swiss youth is the familiar story of Tell's 
dauntless heroism. Yesterday 1 borrowed one 
of the books which the children down here 
in this village of Weesen study. It has on its 
title-page — this work also is in German — "The 
Geography and History of Switzerland, for 



Schools and the Home. Lucerne, 1870." Like 
the Zurich text-book, it treats William Tell as 
a historic character, and gives whom it may 
concern to understand that the account of his 
achievements which have come down from 
former generations is to be accepted, its sketch 
of his career ends with a couplet which may 
be translated, "The story of Tell should be 
told as long as the mountains stand on their 
foundations." 1 have only to add that it is 
c]uite possible that the end of this interesting 
contention is imminent. For although the 
Tellites apparently are unyielding, and the 
anti-Tellites immovable, some such compromise 
may ultimately be agreed to by both camps 
as the one which has united some of the 
Homerites and anti-Homerites of England. 
These students of Homer, according to one 
of our witty British brethren, have unani- 
mously resolved that "the poems commonly 
attributed to Homer were 'not written by him, 
but by another man — of the same name.'' 

Switzerland will celebrate her six hundredth 
birthday this week with befitting pomp and 
9 



circumstance. A stranger within her gates 
who resents the ill treatment of a good man, 
fain would see William Tell rematerialize to 
the confounding of his implacable enemies 
the iconoclasts. What more inspiring oppor- 
tunity for doing so than this great and 
glorious anniversary ! Hence the Overture to 
William Tell which follows. 



Weesen, Switzerland, 
A tig. 3d, i8gi. 



10 







HE legend of the National hero 
of Switzerland is destitute ot 
historical foundation. — Baede- 
ker s Guide to Switzerland. 



II 




WILLIAM 

TELL, 

thou of the 
champion bow, 

iL'ii-l Much do I yearn 
to know 

^'^'ia im.\\\ l^m '^^f„ 



- Whether the thrill- 
ing tale that's told 
of thee. 



-fl 



That's writ in school-books 
here and o'er the sea, 

And stirs all freedom's sons where'er they be. 

Is genuine, as are these Alpine heights. 

Or simply one of fancy's brilliant tlights 

That's called in that fair land in which we dwell 
A sell ;— 
Pray tell us. Tell, 
Do tell, 
Do, Tell ! 

13 



II. 

Wert thou a man, like Brown or Jones or 

Smith, 
Or, like the bow-boy Cupid, just a myth — 

A noble myth, 

Of point and pitii, 

But still a myth ? 
Hast thy biography no greater worth 
Than idlest yarn that e'er was spun on earth. 
Which adds not to our knowledge but our 

mirth, 
Yarn spun by folks who fashion men and scenes 

For the marines ? 

III. 

Didst thou with cruel Gessler bokily grapple. 
Shooting from ofl" thine offspring's head an 

apple, 
Causing the arrow— ah, what skill ! — to enter 

The small fruit's centre? 
14 



Or wert thou ne'er in freedom's fight enlisted, 
For the good reason tiiat thou ne'er existed ? 

Pray tell us, Tell — 

Ring falsehood's knell — 

Do tell, 

Do, Tell. 
Re good to history and solve the mystery, 
Give to the world thine own, thy truthful version 

Of that target excursion. 

IV, 

'Tis held by Baedeker, that guide so honest, 

That thou wert never otherwise than non est ; 

He counsels tourists to be sure and label 

The epic of thy deeds a cunning fable, 

One bound to last 

While freedom lives and Alpme peaks stand fast, 

A very able. 

Aye, a matchless fable, 

But still a fable ! 
15 



And yet, and yet, as all Cook parties know, 
Fair Zurich town — fee half a franc — doth show, 
With patriotic ardor all aglow, 
Among its choicest treasures thy great bow ! 

A phantom bow? 

O no, not so. 

But that objective bow, that concrete one, 

With which thou halved the fruit and missed 

thy son, 

While Gessler gnashed his teeth, and felt 

undone. 

Muttering, ''Tell needs no tutor 

As a shooter." 

What doth that bow, O William Tell, imply 

If not that Baedeker doth truth defy? 

That what he says of thee is in his eye? 

For sure if thou ne'er wert, there could not be 

A bow of thine — to that must all agree — 

And so 
That bow 

Just lays the sceptic low. 
i6 



VI. 

Besides, where mountain monarchs grandly rally 

Round a fair village of the Uri Valley, 

Right there, 

In Altdort"'s Square, 

Its pride beyond compare, 

Its toast, its boast, the thing it loves the most, 

As pious pilgrims love the Mount of Zion, 

As loves Lucerne Thorwaldsen's splendid lion. 

There stands a statue of heroic size, 

Strength in its limbs and valor in its eyes, 

The statue of a man and, mark you well, 

O, keen-eyed Baedeker, the man is Tell, 

Is William Tell, 

Tell, the apple-shooter. 

Tell, the Gessler-hooter ! 

And as the bow of William Tell implied 

A William Tell, logicians must decide 

That Altdorf's statue clearly presupposes 

The self-same man, as rose-leaves call for roses, 

Or as a count of noses calls for noses, 
17 



Or as the books of Moses call for Moses. 

Well may the Swiss, then, sternly put aside 

And deride 
Baedeker's guide ! 

VII. 

And so the chapels christened with thy name. 
If they could have a tongue would fierce exclaim 
To the vain vandals who attack thy fame, 

" For shame ! " 
Like statue and like bow each little chapel 
Necessitates the cleaver of the apple — 

Canst thou not hear them cry, with scorn 
and scoff, 

"Come off!" 

VIII. 
Rut tliis is not enough, O Tell, for though 
Chapel and statue and the Zurich bow, 
And every Alpine mount and lake and dell, 
authenticate the claims of Vv'illiam Tell, 

AH is not well 
i8 



While yet the lusty demon known as Doubt 
On every breeze its horrid flag doth flout, 
And aims to put thy memory to rout, 

To knock thee out. 
We pray thee celebrate thy country's birth 
By coming back again to Alpine earth. 
Come back ! come back ! upon her birthday 

morn, 
Top of Mount Blanc or on the Matterhorn 
Greet thou her glorious sixth centennial dawn ; 
Then, on a lightning train to Zurich go 

And get thy bow 
And shout, in voice that thrills from plain 

to plain, 

"Ye crags and peaks, I'm with thee once 

again," 

To the astounding 

And confounding 

Of tiiose who'd rob thee of thy dazzling fame; 

Come back, O Tell, and stop the sceptic's bark 

Reshooting at that mark ; 
19 



And since 'twould be unfair, in fact, a crime, 
To risk a little boy a second time, 
it might be well, in view of what he's said. 
To place the apple on the sceptic's head — 

On Baedeker's head ; 
Then, if thou hit'st the fruit, acclaims shall rise 

To the skies. 
And Baedeker must prompt apologize. 
But if the arrow, flying rather low, 
Goes through the sceptic's head — but no, not so, 

We know 

Thy bow. 
And 'tis a perfect shame to doubt tliy aim! 




20 



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